“Too hot to eat ’em anyway.” Piemur mopped his sweaty forehead with one hand as he gratefully slid the marks into his pouch.

“But they do make a confection of fruits that you might like,” said Sebell. “Anyway, move around and listen. Don’t get caught being nosy and come up to the Hold for the evening meal. Ask for Harper Bantur if you have any trouble. Or Deece. He remembers you.”

They had reached the edge of the Gather tents, and now Piemur realized that walking space existed but was considerately covered with tenting to deflect the worst of the sun’s baking heat. It was simple now for Piemur to move away from the journeymen harpers and the Weyrleader in the steady flow of people sauntering past the Gather stalls. He saw Menolly turn about, trying to see where he had got to, then Sebell spoke to her, and she shrugged and moved on with him.

Almost immediately Piemur noticed one great difference between this and the Gathers he had attended in the west: people took their time. In order to separate himself from his craftmates, Piemur had deliberately lagged behind, but when he would have stepped out again at his customary pace, he hesitated. No one was moving briskly at all. Gestures and voices were languid, smiles slow, and even laughter had a lazy fall. A great many people carried long tubes from which they sipped. Stalls dispensing drinks, chilled water, as well as sliced fruits, were frequently placed and well-patronized. About every ten stalls or so, there were areas where people lounged, either on the sand or on benches placed about the edges. The tenting was raised in corners to catch breezes sweeping up from the river, cooling the lounge areas and the walkway.

Piemur did one complete walkabout of the Gather rectangle. He could appreciate that, despite breezeways and the expenditure of the minimum of physical effort, people did not do much talking as they strolled from stall to stall. The talking, either conversation or bartering, was done while both parties sat comfortably. So he used one thirty-second piece on a long tube of fruit juice and some succulent slices of a rind-melon, found himself an inconspicuous spot in one lounge area, and settled to listen as he sipped his drink and ate.

At first he didn’t quite catch the softer drawl of these south-easterners. The low-pitched conversation between two men on his left turned out to be the innocuous boasting of one about the breeding lines of the splay-footed runners he was hoping to barter profitably while the other man kept extolling the virtues of the currently favored strain. Disgusted at such a waste of his time, Piemur focused his ears on the group of five men on his right. They were blaming the weather on Thread, the bad crops on the weather and everything else except their lack of industry, which Piemur thought would be the real problem. A group of women were also murmuring against the weather, their mates, their children and the nuisancy children of other holds, but all in a fairly comfortable, tolerantly amused fashion. Three men, with their heads so close together no sound passed their shoulders, finally parted, but not before Piemur saw a small sack pass from one to another and decided that they must only have been bargaining hard, The runnermen left and a new pair took their places, composed their loose robes about them, leaned back and promptly went to sleep. Piemur found himself growing more heavy-eyed and sipped the last of his juice to keep him awake, wondering if he would find another lounge area as dull.

A combination of excited voices and a chill breeze woke him. He stared about him, wondering if he had missed a drum message, and then oriented himself. Night had fallen and, with the set of the sun, the cooler winds of evening blew cheerfully through the raised flaps. There was no one else in the tent with him, but he could smell the aroma of roasting meats and scrambled to his feet. He’d be late at the Hold for his supper, and he was hungry.

Cool evening had enlivened everyone, for the walkway was now full of quickly stepping, chattering people, and Piemur had to duck and dart his way out of the Gather tents. The dragon lumps on the Hold cliff turned their brilliant lanterns of eyes on the doings below them, rivaling the blazing glow baskets set on high standards about the Gather grounds.

No one challenged Piemur at the Hold courtyard gates, and he found the main Hall by simply following the general drift of the well-dressed people.

Lord Laudey, according to Harper Hall gossip, was not a very outgoing man, but at a Gather, every Holder did make an effort. The principal men and craftmasters of his Hold were invited with their immediate families to dine in the Hold Hall, as well as such dragonriders and visiting Lord Holders, Craftmasters and Masters who might be attending the Gather.

By custom, the harpers ate at the first table below the main one. Piemur had never seen the resident Harper, Bantur, and hoped that Menolly and Sebell were already at the table. They were, and chatting in high spirits with Deece, who’d been seconded to Bantur the night Menolly had walked the tables to become a journeywoman, and with Strud, who’d been posted to a sea hold on Igen River that same night. Gray of hair but with bright and unusually blue eyes, Bantur welcomed Piemur with such friendliness for a mere apprentice that Piemur was made more uncomfortable by kindness than he would have been by taciturnity. Bantur insisted on getting him fresh meats and tubers from one of the drudges and heaped his plate so high with choice cuts that Piemur’s eyes boggled.

The other harpers talked while he ate, and when he had finally swallowed the last morsel, Bantur suggested they all leave to make room for more of Lord Laudey’s guests. Then Bantur asked if Piemur would take a harper’s turn on drum or gitar and, when Piemur saw Sebell’s discreet nod, he agreed with a show of enthusiasm to take a gitar part.

“Why Piemur, I thought sure you’d take a drum part,” said Menolly, her expression so bland that he nearly rose to her bait.

Piemur restrained an urge to kick her in the shins and smiled sweetly at her instead. “You heard today what the drummers think of me,” he replied so demurely that Menolly chortled until her eyes filled.

As the harpers filed out of the Hall for the Gather, Sebell fell in step with Piemur.

“Heard anything of interest?”

“Who talks during the day’s heat!” asked Piemur with heartfelt disgust. He suspected that Sebell had known about desert daytime indolence.

“You’ll notice the change in them now, and you’ll only need to do the dance turns. If I gauge the Gather right,” said Sebell, glancing ahead at Menolly’s slender figure in harper blue, “they’ll keep her singing until she’s hoarse. They always do.”

Piemur glanced swiftly at Sebell, wondering if the journeyman was aware of showing his feelings for the harper girl so openly.

The first dance turn was the longest and most energetic. The crisp night air stimulated the dancers’ gyrations until they were energetic beyond Piemur’s credence. Quite a transformation from the languid manners of the afternoon. Then, as Bantur, Deece, Strud and Menolly remained on the platform to sing, Sebell nodded to Piemur to work his way from the square’s attentive audience toward the smaller groups of men, drinking tubes in hand, conversing in quiet tones.

The subdued level, Piemur decided, was out of courtesy to the singers and their audience, but it made it hard for him. He was about to give up when the word “Oldtimers” caught his ear. He sidled closer to the group and, in the light of the glow baskets, recognized two as seaholders, a miner, a smith and an Igen holder.

“I don’t say it was them, but since they’ve gone south, we’ve had no more unexpected demands,” said the smith. “G’narish may also be an Oldtimer, but he follows Benden’s ways. So it had to have been Oldtimers.”